A Hilarious Parody of the Documentary Style Taking Over the Internet

Wispy voiceover. An emotional, atmospheric soundtrack. Slow motion shots of a character doing random, mundane tasks. Copious amounts of silhouetting and backlighting. These are the hallmarks of the contemporary documentary short, and the basis for Jim Archer's hilarious parody.

Chances are, if you're a frequenter of the internet, you've come across a short-doc in the aforementioned style. They're practically everywhere these days, documentary shorts about artists, athletes, activists, artisanal-food-purveyors, and any other profession you can conceive. And for the most part, all of these films look and sound identical to one another.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, as the style has proven itself to be an effective way to craft brief, yet informative and occasionally-moving portraits of an individual. And it's proven to be an effective marketing tool as well (a good portion of these shorts are generated by advertising agencies). However, as filmmakers it's important for us to be aware of dominant trends and styles in our craft so that we can avoid being trite, or even cliché with our own work.

When you watch one or two, you think "Wow, these are really well made," but then you watch a few more you realize they are almost all made the same way. Which is fine, but when you couple that with a story about some LA skater trying to find meaning in his life for 15,000th time, it gets a little boring.

With that in mind, our friend Jim Archer, a filmmaker based out of the UK, put together an affectionate parody of the style. Not only did he capture the essence of the contemporary documentary short, but he managed to craft a portrait of perhaps the most undeserving documentary subject ever — a man named Phil.

I chatted briefly with Jim about why he felt compelled to make this project, and here's what he had to say:

I wanted to parody these types of films not because I particularly dislike them — a lot of them have great stories to tell — but so many of them seem to follow this same formula. It usually centers around one interview which will be 95-100% voiceover, an atmospheric and emotive soundtrack, slow motion shots of literally anything, and at least one shot of the subject looking one way then immediately looking the other — that's non negotiable. I feel that so many of the stories of these documentaries aren't actually that interesting. It's the just the production values that are, so I thought it would be funny to make one about a guy that REALLY didn't deserve to have a film made about him.

Jim also shared some of the technical/production details behind how he and his team went about crafting Phil's heartwarming story:

We shot on an ARRI Amira, which was perfect for this. It obviously delivers a great image but is also much more mobile than the Alexa. Considering we were handheld for the whole shoot and were running around a lot of the time, this was pretty important. Getting the dialogue to sound "natural" was important as well, so in the end we improvised the whole interview. Not only do you often end up getting the funniest stuff from improv, but you also get that conversational delivery which is pretty important when trying to imitate a doc.

If you have any questions for Jim about why and how he made this short, leave them down in the comments. Also, be sure to share your favorite (or the most ridiculous) example of a documentary shot in this style.

I feel like short docs in this mold are often made with a lot of sincerity and for that reason I find the "let's point out how bad this kind of filmmaking is" tone a little abrasive and superior (just a little). I didn't really see that tone in the film though. In fact, I fail to see why a guy like Phil doesn't deserve his own film. I was kind of sympathizing with his existential angst, though I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. I am Phil "Deal with me!"

Hey Derek, thanks for your feedback. I don't think this type of thing is bad filmmaking - that wasn't my intention. I just wanted to use this style to make something dumb and parody a style of documentary that is a little overused. Also glad you sympathise with Phil, I do a little too!

Making something out of nothing. Ad agencies anyone? Seriously filmmakers, you're better than that. Choose good stories and let them speak for themselves. Having to incorporate lots of manipulation is a tall tale sign your story sucks and can't hold it's own.

Come on, this trend is not that bad. Maybe it's just me but if the climax is well made, I actually get into stories, and if the cinematography is good, most of the times I end up enjoying the video. But yeah, maybe that's just me.

You know what the really sad and pathetic thing is? Even though this style might seem 'oversaturated' in internet terms, it will probably still take Australian TV another 2 years to catch on. They're always 2 years behind everything. 5D wasn't adopted until 2012. Sliders only started getting used in 2013. They've just discovered offspeed and drones this year (and they're eeeeeeeeverywhere - and they've got no idea how to use them well). They'd love timelapse, but they don't have the patience to let people go out and shoot it. 4K is probably another 5-10 years away though, since we're still broadcasting in standard def, lol.

The old guard in Australian TV just needs to hurry up and die. They're an absolute joke.

I dont think they intended this to be taken seriously - he said "I wanted to parody these types of films not because I particularly dislike them — a lot of them have great stories to tell — but so many of them seem to follow this same formula."

Amazing! A lot of documentaries made in this style are in fact beautiful and masterfully crafted and quite often they tell a very compelling story. It's a medium and style that works well as a biographical short-doc. That said it's important to be able to laugh at ones self and even one's industry, lest we take ourselves and our work too seriously. Kudos :)

I dont know why we should celebrate people taking the piss out of other people's efforts. I dont understand why this has been published on NFS.
It feels too me just like an excuse to show that you can actually film a high quality thing, so it's a twofold thing: I pretend to laugh at others efforts a way that showcases my skills. i would risk to say it is coward.
whatever the current trend is, it doesn't matter as long as it is honest, as long as we can get something out of it. As an aspiring filmmaker I've learnt a lot from efforts like this. Celebrating parodies like this only discourage our attempts to learn by copying what we've seen and building upon that.
I find this post quite condescending.

In my opinnion, what this short doc highlights is that we are reaching a point where content/story/characters/research are becoming a secundary role less important than production values, which in the case of the contemporary short doc are evolving into a stereotype.

Thats a tricky path we are taking as add agencies now believe they can do an epic emotional short bio doc about everything. And this is wrong because when you asume all you need is good production values and you dont make efforts to find a great story then it gets boring, banal. Stories are first, production values are second. Reversing the order will make every other short film look similar.

I have some filmmaker friends who use rack focus and shallow depth of field in EVERY shot and they just tell me i like my images like that.

If something, this is a good post to remember that in filmmaking we, ideally, should choose lens, depth of field and sliders or jib movements in order to convey an idea or an emotion....not just repeat over and over the same formula.

Ok so....he doesn't like this "Documentary Style" but then he makes the exact kind of documentary he hates. Slaps the "Parody" label on it, then uses it to promote himself. I see what you did there....

Finally! I been hating this artificial/superficial style for a long time -- add the extremely shallow depth of field so to completely lose sense of space and endless sliders timed to cheesy music and you will amount to what's considered "professional" and "contemporary" these days.

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